Halloween pictures

Here's my cuties for Halloween. Some of these were taken today so we could get some pictures of what they were for Halloween this year. I'll have to take some of Mark and I. I had a pretty creative costume this time. Mercedes was a cute pumpkin, Brynli was a snow princess and Caleb was a robot.

Doulas

We have our new camera so I will be posting pictures soon. :) I am excited about life. I have the feeling that this is going to be a really great year for me. It's exciting.

This is a new video about doulas. It's what I do. Mothers, babies, families, and birth. I'm passionate about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u792CxDT7cE

Happy

5 Things I'm grateful for Today:

1. I'm getting my endurance & strength back. Yeah! I'm getting ready to start an exercise program for myself that I think I'll Love.

2. I get to play Volleyball tonight. Can hardly wait.

3. We have a dishwasher again, which is so fantastic after not having one for a few months.

(Awesome blessing. Our control panel stopped working on our dishwasher a few months ago. I had a small impression to wait to buy a new one. I was kind of bummed we were going to have to spend some of our savings on something we already had, but broke. So, I followed the feeling and just decided to wait for a little while to buy a new one and we just did dishes by hand. After a few months I was ready to just buy a new one. Then, the weekend I started researching and planning to get a new one, a man from church came up to us and asked if we needed a dishwasher. They were moving and planning to buy a really fancy schmancy one I think. When they moved they gave us the dishwasher - only 3 years old and black, so it matches our kitchen! Awesome. Heavenly Father is so amazing.

4. Mercedes' tooth broke through so we have a much happier camper and she's starting to crawl, which is fun for her. It's amazing how much joy it brings when my children accomplish something. Even though I have 3 kids, seeing Mercedes sit up and crawl still brings so much delight.

5. I get to be with these cute little people everyday! And my sweet husband tonight!

Regret is one of the worst feelings. A close person in my life was having her first baby and I had the prompting to call her yesterday. I knew she was in labor or going to be shortly. I felt like I needed to call her and didn't. I didn't do it right away and then I forgot with all the day's activities. The labor was difficult and the baby had a hard time when she was born and so did the parents. I regret bitterly I didn't call her and assist her.

Dates with Caleb & Brynli

We took Caleb and Brynli on special one on one dates a couple weeks ago. We had a fantastic time. Mark took Caleb miniature golfing, which Caleb had never done. He loves golf and he thought this was the coolest thing. He keeps telling me everyday he wants to go again and he wants to show me. I took Brynli to the library, we snuggled up on a big bean bag and I read her tons of books. It was so great to just sit and be with her for a long time. Then, we sat by the fountain on the big bench swings.

I don't know what happened to our camera. This is how the pictures look. It looks kind of cool in the picture of Brynli, so I decided to post it anyway. Guess we need to look for a new camera.
My cutie Mercedes. We are having so much fun with her!

4th & 24th

We had an awesome time at the stadium of fire. Amazing. Well, Mark and I did at least. ha ha. Caleb has always been scared of the loud noises of fireworks, more like terrified, and his fear kind of influenced Brynli as well. They really didn't like the fireworks at all - too loud and they were tired by then. So, if we go again I think it will just be Mark and I. :) But the night was amazing with Carrie Underwood and Jenny Oaks Baker. Fantastic. I really like both of them so it was so fun to see them live. Mark just wishes he would have won one of the motorcycles they gave away. And sweet Mercedes was the happiest one of the night. Didn't ever cry and actually took a little nap during the concert. Such a sweet baby!

We had such a great family reunion over the 24th (of July). Filled with boating, fantastic volleyball, games and seeing my awesome family - is there anything better?

We had a volleyball challenge between my family and my Aunt's family. It was quite the fun volleyball game. And we won! Woot!

There was a nice grassy area enclosed by the apartments that the kids could just run around freely and play together. They had so much fun together.

Group hug! Caleb with his cousins. They were giving each other a group hug and falling over laughing. So cute.

Thanksgiving Point

Yay! Thanksgiving point!

Mercedes was a great sport. She just took a nap in the trailer and was happy enjoying the ride.

We loved walking around seeing all the beautiful plants and flowers. I kept wishing I could live in a place like this. Caleb & Brynli got pretty tired walking at the end, but they really enjoyed the children's garden.

family reunion

We had fun at our family reunion a couple weeks ago. We played lots of games (mostly settlers and dominion), had a family olympics, had a duck race with rubber ducks, had fun going down the new slides at Lava, played more games, played on Grandma's fun water slide, picked delicious raspberries, played indoor soccer, went to the zoo and funland, and just had a good time. This little fun picture below is a cute, creative idea by my sisters in law. Every time we participated in a game (outdoor, board, card, etc) we got to put a sticker on the chart. Every time we won a game we got to put a gold star sticker on the chart. We also got to put our person on top of the mountain (unpictured) and be king of the moment. At the end of the reunion whoever had the most participation points got a prize and whoever had the most wins won a prize. Guess who won? :)

Water kick ball

Watch out girls! Dinosaur Caleb is right above you!

funland

Mercedes trying out a swing for the first time

Hey Ryan thanks for giving me a good laugh. I enjoyed watching your video you took on Mark's phone. Thought about posting it.

This is awesome. Give it a try.

This makes my day

Mercedes; 7/20/10

Mercedes : mother of mercies Belle: Beauty. Mercedes you are my beautiful angel. You are a reminder to me of God's beautiful tender mercies in my life. You bring so much joy and love to our family!

You were blessed May 2nd by your Father. It was a beautiful blessing and I felt the Spirit wash over me as you were being blessed. I was filled with so much joy! I'm so thankful to be your mother.

7/20/10

We tried millet this morning for breakfast. I haven't done that for a long time. The kids loved it. Even Mercedes got to try some, which she quite enjoyed. She is already so interested in eating and gets excited every time I eat. I've been working on getting our house more in order. I'm trying to deep clean and de-clutter this week. Mercedes has been funny about sleeping the past few days. She is usually fine to just lay down with her binky and just go to sleep, but when I put her in her crib lately she starts crying. So, I got her back out and was holding her and then put her in her stroller for a minute and she just immediately fell asleep. It was kind of funny.

We took a break from cleaning and went swimming for a while. We had a blast. Caleb loves jumping in now with floaties on. It's so fun to watch him get more and more used to the water because he's always been kind of afraid of it. It's fun to see him jump in now. Hopefully by the end of the Summer they will be swimming on their own and havin tons of fun. :)

We got to talk to Mark for a minute on skype. Sounds like he's having a good time in Japan. It's so exciting he is back in Japan! Lucky. The kids really miss their daddy though. Then, tonight we went to see the parade preview of all the floats. It is amazing to really see them up close. They are pretty incredible. And the kids had their faces painted. :)

This dog acted just like a real dog. It was awesome. Caleb & Brynli wanted to pet it. It moves and acts real. They were actually a little afraid of it even though I kept telling them it wasn't a real dog.

family time

Well geez, I think it's about time I wrote something on here again. Sometimes I feel like I want to blog everyday and sometimes I don't want to for a while. Life is great. I love summer, love it. The other day we got to see some of our close college friends that we haven't seen for too long. We got to meet each other's cutie kids. It was very fun. That night we went on a very fun bike ride as a family. We strapped Brynli and Mercedes in our bike trailer, Caleb rode along with us and we headed for the trails around the lake. It was amazing. It was beautiful, the air was clear. It was just so enjoyable. It's the kind of simple thing I've dreamed about doing with my family before I was even married. We watched the lightning dance around the sky and from where we were, we could see it all over the valley. The smell of rain filled the air. Just as we were getting close to our neighborhood it started raining. We got home and we watched the rain and played in it. It was wonderful. And Mercedes slept from 10-8 that night. Wa Hoo! (She hasn't done that since, but that's alright.)

The other day Caleb and Brynli were playing around and I was in the kitchen and I looked over and Caleb chucked a ball at Brynli's face. He wasn't angry, I think he thought it was funny. Sometimes he does things and I wonder why in the world he does. (It's not like this is the first time he's done something like that). I didn't really know what to do. I got mad and sent him to his room. I was upset about it and called Mark to talk to him about what I should do because I didn't just want to go yell at him or something and make him give her a hug and make him say he was sorry. I wanted him to actually feel inside that he wished he hadn't done that and actually want to make it better. I said a prayer in my heart that I would know what to do and know how to teach him. As I was walking to his room I had the prompting "Teach him the 5 steps of repentance". So, I got on the computer and searched on LDS.org for 5 steps of repentance. The first one was a sharing time idea on how to teach it. Great, especially because it had some little pictures for examples.

I took it in there and taught him each step. I was amazed as I watched him start to understand and he was especially interested in the picture example. The picture was of a boy being mean to a kid and pushing him, then in the next picture he was thinking about the boy and feeling bad that the boy was sad, and the last picture he is being nice to him and making restitution. I talked to both Caleb and Brynli about it and both were very interested. I noticed how much more effective teaching is during those "teaching moments" leaders talk about.

Something else that was happening was the Spirit was also teaching me. He (we all) need to know how to repent and make things right. It's empowering. He's going to need this a lot and it's alright. My job is to help him understand where to go and how to make things right. And I also need it as a mother all the time. I do things that I wish I would have done differently and sometimes I just get reactive when they push my buttons, especially if I'm not taking care of myself very well. I also need this power everyday. I felt closer to Caleb. And the neat thing was his reaction. He got out the tape and taped the papers I had printed onto his wall so he would remember and begged me to print off more because "everyone needs to know this."

Once again I'm amazed by his spirit. Motherhood is a journey I walk beside my children. I certainly don't have all the answers and do things I wish I wouldn't, but I'm so thankful for the journey.

fantastic books

These are some books I've read recently and they are amazing.

And our trip to the zoo